


Rent-to-Own

by acareeroutofrobbingbanks



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: First Time, M/M, Sexual Content, kind of prostitution?, prostitutish, set during apartment years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 02:22:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7148573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acareeroutofrobbingbanks/pseuds/acareeroutofrobbingbanks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Making money as an up-and-coming musician is tough, and living away from his parents for the first time, Patrick is ending up with a lot of hungry nights. When a girl offers to buy him a drink to watch him and his 'boyfriend' make out, Patrick suggests she buy them pizza instead, and drags Pete along for the ride. But the more girls that show up, willing to pay to see hot boy-on-boy action, the further they want them to go, and the less sure Patrick is that his feelings for his fake boyfriend are purely platonic. Things get complicated further when their customers suggest that Pete and Patrick have sex in front of them, and Patrick never has before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rent-to-Own

            “Come on, we don’t have to go home yet! You’ll just bitch and moan about not having food at the apartment, and you can do that here!”

            This wasn’t the first time Pete had tried to convince Patrick to stay late at one of the many seedy bars they played at. From what Patrick could tell, Pete had no desire to go home and rest- ever. There was always someone else he needed to meet, someone he had to talk to. If Pete ever came back to the apartment, he was too burnt out to talk for hours. And Patrick was trying, yet again, to convey the fact that he didn’t want to collapse on his bed in a complete coma every night. If he couldn’t be well fed, he could be well rested.

            “Just because you don’t have to do something,” Patrick began in what was, if he was being honest with himself, a bit of a holier-than-thou voice, before Pete spun him around with firm hands on his shoulders, directing Patrick’s attention over to a pretty blonde girl, who was giggling self-consciously and waving at Patrick.

            “We don’t have to go home yet,” Pete said again, quieter, and right in Patrick’s ear. The girl crooked her finger, beckoning Patrick over towards her. Pete knew he won the second that Patrick sighed, and he pushed him forward, running off to God knows where. Patrick stumbled forward, sitting next to her and smiling.

            After a few minutes of talking, however, Patrick was starting to think the girl was a ploy, and he had been completely abandoned. She seemed mostly disinterested, and it wasn’t as though he had enough money to buy her a drink. It wasn’t as though he would buy her a drink if he did have the money. He would probably order a black bean burger, as written in purple chalk on a board above the bar as tonight’s special. Five dollars. An incredible deal in Chicago, and he still couldn’t buy it.

            “Where’s your friend?” she asked after a while, and Patrick wanted to smash his skull in with a shot glass, because this was at least the fifth time that someone had started flirting with him just to talk to Pete.

            “Knowing him, probably sleeping with your best friend.” Patrick muttered, drumming his fingers in boredom on the bar. She looked up at him, surprised.

            “What, aren’t you guys-?” she asked, and Patrick gave her a strange look. The girl faltered for a second, then collected herself. “Aren’t you two together?”

            Maybe it was good that he didn’t have a drink, Patrick thought. He would have spat it all over her.

            “Me a-and him?” Patrick spluttered. “I-I’m not- that is, we’re not-”

            “Seriously?” she asked now, eyebrows raised. “You were hanging all over each other.”

            “That’s just- I…” Patrick trailed off, no readily available response to that.

            “That’s a shame,” she sighed dreamily, leaning her chin on the back of her hand where it was propped up on the bar. “It would be so hot if you guys had made out.”

            Patrick had no response to that.

            “I mean, I’ll buy you drinks if you make out anyway,” she said, and Patrick paused.

            “That’s- that’s not really my place.” Patrick said. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t- I mean…”

            “It’s no big deal,” she sighed, looking disappointed and uninterested.

            “Look-” he tried to get her interest again, but it didn’t look like she was actually that interested in him. Another disappointment. He sighed, turning away from her and preparing to leave, when a thought struck him, and he spun back around.

            “Would you buy us dinner?” he asked.  

            “What?” she asked.

            “Dinner, it’s like, five dollars, cheaper than drinks.” Patrick said, practically salivating at the hope. She raised her eyebrows, but shrugged.

            “Yeah, sure,” she said, and with confirmation, Patrick immediately went to find Pete.  He was probably interrupting something, but he didn’t want to wait long enough for the girl to change her mind. Luckily, he didn’t really have to search for Pete. The bar was small, and it wasn’t hard to find him by the distinctive sound of his laugh. Only a few steps away, and completely ignoring Patrick floundering as usual, but that wasn’t the point right now. Patrick grabbed him by his shirt collar mid-laugh, and dragged him back over to the girl.

            “Hey, dude, what are you doing?” Pete asked, not even entirely annoyed.

            Rather than replying, Patrick dragged Pete into a sloppy kiss by grabbing the back of his head with one hand, fingers curling desperately in his hair, and all but slamming their faces together. Patrick felt like he was more kissing at him than kissing him, but their lips were touching, spit was being swapped, (Pete’s mouth tasted like beer, which was really gross, and Patrick had no idea where it came from). To his surprise, Pete didn’t pull away, but instead just went with it. There were some things you had to appreciate about Pete Wentz, Patrick thought, and his lack of surprise when someone started kissing him was one quality Patrick never thought he would be grateful for.

            After nearly thirty seconds of girls cheering in the background, Patrick pulled away with a wet popping sound, looking into the face of a very wide eyed Pete.

            “What?” Pete asked, shaking his head ever so slightly. It didn’t look like a “no” kind of head shake, it was more like he was trying to shake water out of his ears.

            “Thank me later,” Patrick suggested. In the middle of all the loud cheering still going on, the girl handed Patrick a blue plastic basket filled with restaurant quality fries and a black bean burger.

            “You want the same thing as him, or something else?” she asked Pete, and Pete turned to Patrick with a disbelieving grin.

            “Pizza,” he said, still grinning at Patrick. Patrick winked at him, and sank his teeth into the burger, more delicious than he could have imagined.

***

            Patrick wasn’t sure who suggested going back to the bar, but only two nights later, they both ended up at the same bar again. It was just as dark and seedy as before, but instead of making Patrick feel anxious, it filled him with anticipation. Maybe it was the promise of food other than flavor-less ramen noodles, or maybe there was a small, seriously, minutely small part of him, that kind of liked the attention.

            Either way, the two of them walked into the bar together, and the girl from earlier was there with a group of her friends.

            “Hi!” she cheered, waving the two of them over. She sounded a lot more drunk than Patrick remembered, this thought further confirmed as she gestured to all of her friends with a wide, sweeping motion, spilling beer all over them. “Guys, these are the boys I told you about!” She talked in a singsong, and every sentence she said came out like an exclamation. Patrick felt suddenly shy and embarrassed as he saw all of their eyes on him, but next to him Pete grinned warmly, draping his arm around Patrick’s shoulder.

            “They’re not as cute as you said,” one girl whined, her lips pulled up in a pout, and Patrick bit his lip, resisting the urge to glare at her. Food, he reminded himself, was the objective here. It didn’t really matter what they thought of him.

            “Just waaaaait,” the original girl whined, then drunkenly tried to focus on Pete and Patrick again. Patrick and her locked eyes for an uncomfortable few seconds as she swayed.

            “Make out,” she demanded, hiccupping a bit.

            “Will you buy us dinner first?” Pete asked in a light, teasing voice.

            “JOSH!” she yelled, waving the bartender over. “Get them whatever they want,” she demanded.

            Pete gave Patrick a sweet smile, definitely hamming it up for the crowd now that he knew what was going on. It was the Casanova smile, the toothy side smirk that he used to bring girls home with him.

            “Babe?” he said, using a low tone of voice but keeping his volume up, so that, Patrick imagined, the seemingly intimate moment could be displayed. Patrick was in no position to deny theatrics, but he had no clue how to keep up the sappiness of the moment, so he yanked Pete over by the collar, pulling him into a kiss again.

            This time was weirder than the last, Patrick decided. He had time to think about it this time, rather than acting on instinct. He was more aware of his hands gripping at Pete’s t-shirt, and the way he could feel muscles underneath the startlingly thin fabric. He was more aware of the way Pete’s tongue skimmed his lips in a delicate, probing motion. He was more aware of the rhythm of their kissing, the way it seemed to ebb and flow like waves. And he was painfully aware of Pete’s hands tangled in his hair like it was his lifeline.

            Despite all this awareness, he didn’t seem to question where his hat had gone until Pete pulled back, lips glistening, with a smug expression on his face.

            The bar immediately around them erupted in cheers, a few girls screaming “so hot!” and out of pure instinct, Patrick kept staring at Pete as he heard the hollering around them.

            “Josh, my man,” Patrick shook himself out of the daze as he heard Pete talking to the bartender behind him. “I’ll have pizza.”

            “B-black bean burger,” Patrick said, turning as well. The bartender rolled his eyes, but handed them their food anyway, it probably having spent most of the day under a warming light.

            “Thith ith fun,” Pete said around a mouthful of food. “We thould do thith more often.” Patrick stared at him for a second, snorting.

            “It’s a good thing they don’t give us the food until after we make out,” he said. “Did you ever learn to chew with your mouth closed?”

            Pete leaned over Patrick, his mouth wide open as he made exaggerated chewing faces, and loud noises to accompany them.

            “You’re gross,” Patrick laughed, pushing his face away. As they ate, girls were beginning to envelop the two of them, cooing about how cool it was, how hot, and were they by any chance bisexual?

            Patrick felt extraordinarily content.

***

            They definitely weren’t intending on letting it become a habit. But it seemed that every few days, Patrick would turn to Pete and say; “Wanna go out to eat?” and Pete would grin and go brush his teeth, at Patrick’s request. And so far, they hadn’t let it become weird.

            They went to the same bar each time, and it seemed that the one girl who had initiated their… thing, was a regular. And even when she wasn’t there, she had a fairly stable circle of friends, and one of them would always be there, often with more friends.

            After a while, it wasn’t just them, either. It seemed that every time they went, there were more girls, more women, until the bar was just the two of them, the bartender, and a crowd of women grinning at them expectantly.

            Once it became a crowd experience, it wasn’t just dinner either. People would bring sacks of groceries, and they would go for longer and longer. The woman with the food decided when they had “earned it”, but really, it wasn’t that bad. As much as Patrick didn’t want to admit it, Pete was a good kisser, and, as Pete added, it was better than nine-to-five.

            But, when Patrick was finally getting into the swing of things, had tried everything on the menu, and was bringing food back to put into the fridge three nights out of the week, things got complicated.

            “Where are you guys going?” Joe asked, pausing the Sega game. Pete and Patrick froze, and Patrick turned, in a lack of thought, towards Pete. Pete blinked furiously, then plastered a smile on his face.

            “We’re going out to eat,” he said smoothly. Joe snorted.

            “You and what money?” Joe asked.

            “With my mom,” Pete added, and Patrick could hear the facade in Pete’s voice slipping.

            “Are you wearing eyeliner?” Joe asked.

            “Don’t wait up for us,” Patrick suggested, and Joe looked even more confused.

            “Where are you going to eat?” he asked dubiously, looking them up and down. Patrick felt suddenly self-conscious in the slightly too tight v-neck that Pete had lent him, assuring him that it fit the role. He was in jeans tighter than he would have picked on his own too, and knew that Pete was dressed similarly.

            “You’re just jealous my mom likes Patrick better,” Pete laughed.

            “Okay…” Joe trailed off, his eyebrows raised, but he turned to face the screen again. Pete grabbed Patrick’s elbow, and the two of them made a hasty escape.

            “Well he’s suspicious,” Pete said.

            “Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious,” Patrick shot back. “Dinner with your mom?”

            “She should take us out to dinner,” Pete said, contemplative. “Isn’t she concerned about her poor starving son and poor starving future son in law?”

            “I’d make a joke about buying me dinner first, but-” Patrick laughed, and Pete punched his arm.

            Patrick felt his chest swelling with anticipation as he and Pete walked the few blocks down to the bar. He could feel the heat rising up in his face as they walked in, and the blush forming on his cheeks as the usual crowd whistled at their entrance. And he felt heat pooling on every inch of his skin when Pete grabbed him by the hair, knocking his hat off as his world boiled down to skin and nails and lips tracing his entire jaw between jabs at his own mouth.

            And maybe Pete was a really good kisser, but then again, Patrick could explain away the good feelings as being pavloved into enjoying the kissing because he was so used to getting food after.

            Two nights later, however, when they got ready to go out again, Joe faced them like he was about to start an intervention, and said: “Okay, seriously, where are you two going?”

            “The truth?” Pete asked, and Patrick froze, resisting the urge to strangle Pete into keeping silent.

            “We’ve been going out to this bar, trying to get Patrick a girlfriend,” he said, and the lie didn’t make Patrick shy away from the strangling idea at all.

            “Patrick doesn’t meet girls at bars,” Joe laughed shortly, “You’d have better luck taking him to a science fair.” He still looked like he didn’t believe Pete, and Patrick wasn’t sure if he was grateful to Joe or not.

            “We’re working on it,” Pete promised, and he and Patrick left.

            “Trying to get me a girlfriend?” Patrick asked acidly. Pete shrugged.

            “It was the initial plan,” Pete shrugged.

            “I hope you choke on my spit.”

            “Be careful what you wish for, buddy. You slobber like a dog and it’ll be hard to find another bassist half so cute as me.”

            They got to the bar a little later than usual, and the women were all already waiting for them. Eager. Expectant.

            They got to kissing, Patrick in no mood to build it up, and he raked at Pete’s back with nails, harder than usual, and he pretended not to notice when Pete moaned loudly into his mouth, because that’s what friends did.

            They were really getting into it, hands twisted in the others’ hair, when a middle aged woman tapped Patrick on the shoulder, and he pulled away suddenly and with a loud wet suction-y sound, staring at her wide eyed.

            “Yes, can I help you?” he asked, unsure of what the etiquette for something like this was, and he heard Pete behind him slam his hand into his forehead.

            “My friends and I were talking,” the woman said, a mousy looking person with wan hair and watery eyes. “And we’ll give you a hundred dollars if you -ah- grab him.” She giggled girlishly, and Patrick’s eyebrows furrowed. He heard Pete’s sharp intake of breath behind him.

            “I’ve been grabbing him?” he asked slowly, uncertain as to what he was missing, but squeezed Pete’s shoulder tight nonetheless. He turned around to see Pete bright red and mortified looking, glaring at Patrick while he blushed. The women all laughed, loudly, and one of them cried: “Oh god, he’s so cute! Is he serious?”

            “I meant to grab his- oh my god!” the woman laughed, and Patrick felt heat rising up in his face as he realized what she meant.

            “Oh!” he squeaked.

            “Jesus Christ,” Pete muttered. “How was this your idea?”

            “Come on, a hundred dollars?” she said, holding up five twenties, a hopeful gleam in her watery eyes.

            “I- I don’t- I couldn’t-” Patrick stuttered, but Pete grabbed his arm, pulling the two of them face to face.

            “We’re behind on rent money,” he whispered, eyebrows raised. “And for some reason they think you’re cute. It’s not a big deal.”

            “I- um-” Patrick looked around frantically, and then, at a loss for what to do, pulled Pete in by the back of his neck, clashing their lips together again. he took advantage of Pete’s stunned position to let his hands roam lower than they had before, sliding down his chest, and slipping under the waistband of his jeans.

            The crowd at the bar began cheering, and Patrick tried to ignore them, to focus on the task at hand, keeping his eyes firmly closed and telling himself that it was just Pete, nobody else, just the two of them and it wasn’t weird. If he could just keep imagining that nobody else was watching, it was fine. He could focus on the warm body practically intertwined with his, practically moving as one, they were so used to doing this by now.

            Patrick’s hand traced the skin of Pete’s pelvis, and Pete twitched backwards, but pushed forward again, hips pulling almost unconsciously closer to Patrick. All the build-up, but when Patrick finally touched Pete’s dick, it was kind of a let-down. He expected him to be hard as they’d been making out for a while, but his hand was awkward, somehow slipping his index and middle finger on either side, and there was so much hair, which Patrick tried really hard not to get grossed out by. As awful and awkward as it was for Patrick, Pete must not have cared, because he just groaned louder, thrusting closer to Patrick, getting Patrick’s awkward fingers all tangled up in his _pubic hair gross gross gross ugh_.

            He tried to stop being so weirded out, to remember the money, and when that didn’t work, tried to imagine that they were alone, that it was just them, and he shifted his hand so his whole palm was pressing on Pete’s dick, and Pete moaned into Patrick’s mouth, loudly. Patrick sighed, unthinkingly, their breath caught together as neither pulled away from the kiss, mouths open, sharing air. Patrick curled his fingers so that they were wrapping around Pete’s dick, and Pete whimpered, making Patrick pull closer, because God, yes, make that sound again.

            It wasn’t until Pete moved one hand from the small of Patrick’s back forward, pressing gently on Patrick’s chest, that he remembered the audience. He let go, his hand recoiling at lightning speed, and he pulled away. The bar was silent, for the first time Patrick could remember. Then they burst into applause.

            Pete, grinning sloppily, took a bow, and thumped Patrick on the back into the same position. The woman that had asked them handed them a hundred and fifty dollars, mostly in twenties, saying that they had “earned the extra.”

            Patrick turned to face Pete.

            “Wow.” Pete said, his mouth curving around the word, and his eyes alight.

            “I know!” Patrick said, shaking himself out of the daze he had been in. “A hundred and fifty dollars! That’s like- well, it doesn’t get us caught up with Joe, but we’re close now!”

            “Oh!” Pete said, shaking his head too, perhaps in a daze as well. “Oh, yeah, of course! Right! That’s- exciting!”

            “We should do that more often!” Patrick said, grinning. Pete nodded wordlessly, his mouth still a little slack. Another woman pressed a bag of groceries into Patrick’s arms, and the bartender handed them plastic baskets of food. They had started eating, Patrick in a fantastic mood, when he heard someone familiar say:

            “What the FUCK did I just watch?”

            “Joe!” Pete practically jumped out of his skin, and Patrick spun around, his face frozen into a position of a deer in the headlights.

            “Did you just- prostitute yourselves?” Joe asked, incredulous. Patrick’s mouth opened and shut a few times, sound refusing to come out.

            “We did not- I mean- i-it’s not exactly- god, it’s not PROSTITUTION!” Patrick sputtered.

            “And ‘prostitute’ isn’t a verb!” Pete complained.

            “She gave you a hundred and fifty dollars,” Joe sounded almost impressed, a half smirk growing on his face.

            “Well, I mean, yeah!” Pete cried, “But it’s not like that!”

            “What’s it like?” Joe asked, eyebrow raised.

            “It’s like- it’s like- I’m not a prostitute!” Patrick yelled.

            “Neither am I!” Pete added.

            “What would you call sex for money?” Joe asked.

            “It’s not like that!” Patrick repeated, a whine breaking into his voice. “It’s not even sex, it’s just,” he waved his hands, frantically trying to find an excuse, “Kissing, it’s not even- we just make out, and they think it’s hot, and I was really hungry and they buy us food and stuff like how guys buy girls drinks when they make out, right? It’s like that!”

            “Uh huh,” Joe said. A girl passing by grabbed Patrick’s ass. He tried to ignore it.

            “Just because you aren’t a traditional prostitute-”

            “It’s not sex though!” Pete protested.

            “He was about to give you a hand job in a crowded bar!” Joe said, one eyebrow raised.

            “Whatever!” Patrick yelled. “What does it matter?”

            “Nothing,” Joe sighed. “I’m just saying that if you guys don’t wanna be prostitutes, I can still cover you for rent.”

            “Here-” Pete shoved the money into Joe’s hand, a driven look on his face. “Take the goddamn money, we’re gonna finish eating and collect the rest of the groceries, and we’ll be back in an hour, okay?”

            “Okay,” Joe said, and he jammed the wad of twenties into his jeans pocket walking out. Patrick could still feel his cheeks burning as Pete turned back to his shitty bar pizza.

It wasn’t till they got home that he realized that it wasn’t normal to pretend that he and Pete were alone whenever they were kissing.

***

            It didn’t take long for the girls at the bar to start wanting more. Patrick found himself redrawing lines daily, because at first it was “Nothing below the collar,” then it was “Nothing below the belt,” and then it was “No clothes off,” and Patrick didn’t really believe it would last when the new rule was “No orgasms,” but at the very least, he didn’t have to cum.

            It wasn’t that Pete didn’t want to avoid it too- he always pushed Patrick back at the last second, lips tacky from overuse and pupils blown out of proportion, but neither of them wanted to come apart like that in front of an audience, as far as Patrick was aware.

            This made it quite a big shock when one night, with a breathless, helpless moan, Pete’s whole body went weak in Patrick’s free arm and he fell back onto the table. Patrick briefly thought Pete might have been hurt and hurriedly extracted his hand, only to see it damp with something white and turn red in embarrassment for Pete.

            “Dude,” Patrick whispered, one hand still on Pete’s back, “You okay?”

            “Mmmm,” Pete sighed, rolling his head to face Patrick, a lazy smile on his face. “Yeah.”

            “Huh,” Patrick let out a nervous laugh, unsure where to take this, when Pete pulled Patrick down on top of him on the table by his hair, clasping his mouth onto Patrick’s pulling at and sucking Patrick’s lips with more force than he looked capable of a minute ago.

            “Mmph!” Patrick gasped, eyes wide as Pete rutted against his hips. “Mm- ah!- Pete-!” his eyes slid closed after a moment, his hips twitching forward almost imperceptibly.

            Seeming to sense exactly what Patrick wanted above him, Pete lifted his leg so that his foot rested on the table and his thigh was in the perfect place for Patrick to grind on. Friction seemed suddenly like air to Patrick, and if he didn’t get more immediately he would burst into flames. Or maybe it would cause him to burst into flames, but, Patrick reasoned, better to find out than wonder.

            Pete shifted his leg just enough to rub Patrick exactly the right way and cause him to let out a choked groan, burying his face in Pete’s shoulder as a shudder ran through him.

            “Jesus, ‘trick,” Pete muttered, “Don’t even have to touch you.”

            Patrick wanted to beg Pete to touch him, to make him come apart just like he had, but some girl in the audience gasped, and just like that, the spell was shattered. Patrick pulled away, leaving Pete with big eyes and pouting lips.

            The women in the bar began clapping, even as Pete crossed his arms over his chest, chuckling a little with them.

            “You’re turn to cum next, Patrick,” Pete said, almost a threat. Patrick laughed stiffly as he stood up, trying to adjust his jeans in some semblance of a comfortable position.

            “Not on your life,” Patrick said.

            A hat (not Patrick’s) went around the room, coming back with over two hundred dollars in it. Patrick smiled at Pete, still feeling somewhat guilty for the day, even though Pete could have told him to stop at any time. Patrick just worried- Pete seemed oddly quiet after they stopped, and he didn’t want whatever the hell this was to come in between their friendship.

            “Make up for the embarrassment?” Patrick asked, only half joking as he fanned himself with a wad of twenties.

            “More than,” Pete agreed, hopping up on a barstool.

            The two of them ate in relative silence, Patrick noticing out of the corner of his eye that Pete’s shirt was still riding up a little, an inch or two of skin exposed on his stomach. They stayed mostly quiet until they began the walk home, and Patrick tried to strike up the conversation again.

            “Think I should tell my mom I got a job?” Patrick teased, and Pete rolled his eyes.

            “Yeah, this’ll get her to approve of me more,” Pete smiled, and looked down again.

            “What’s wrong?” Patrick asked, and Pete shrugged.

            “Never lost control like that before,” he said. “It was- unexpected.” Patrick swallowed.

            “Bad?” he asked, and Pete grinned up at him, aiming a kick at his legs.

            “Not bad,” he said. “Let’s get home, we’ve got a kid to cook for.”

            “Nah, I’ll be the stepdad,” Patrick said, “Joe’s your kid.”

            “Fucker,” Pete said, and they fell into step easily.

***

            Patrick was lying on his back on a bed, squirming as he stared up at someone in the dark. The sheets were damp with sweat that pricked at Patrick’s skin, but it was the least prevalent of the sensations he felt. His dick was painfully hard and he could feel cold air on every part of his body.

“Fuck,” he groaned, and his hands trailed down his chest. His eyelids fluttered rapidly as his hand rested on his dick, and his teeth sank into his lip, trying to bite back the noise.

            “God, you’re beautiful,” Pete whispered, his face coming into view. His hands reached down and clamped down on his nipples and twisting with more force than Patrick would have expected. A burning hot line ran from his nipples to his dick, which twitched under his hand.

            "Fuck!” he gasped, his pelvis lifting off the mattress.

            “What do you want?” Pete breathed, right above Patrick now, oppressive.

            “More, more, touch me!” Patrick whined, all the shyness he had ever had burnt away by the heat coursing through his body and focusing itself in a white hot point at his dick.

            “Fuck,” Pete whispered, hair trailing across Patrick’s jaw as his knees settled on either side of Patrick’s hips, pinning his hand down. Patrick gasped at the sudden weight, how good it felt, but his hand was now pinned down, and his dick was aching.

            “Jesus Christ, get me off!” Patrick growled. He bucked his hips up and into Pete’s, and Pete nodded, staring transfixed at him.

            Pete started kissing him at his collar, working his way down and let his fingers ghost over Patrick’s chest. With his hands now freed, Patrick yanked at Pete’s hair, needy and demanding, pleading for something he couldn’t say out loud.

            “Your turn to cum now, Patrick,” he said, his lips mere inches from Patrick’s dick when Patrick woke up, sweat drenched.

            Patrick yanked the blanket up to his chin, as though somehow it would prevent people from seeing what he had just seen. He let out a long, low hiss of air, rolled over, and tried to fall back asleep.

***

            One of the few bad sides of his and Pete’s “arrangement” was that Patrick felt the need to jerk off more. A lot more. His dick wasn’t exactly in the mood to take no for an answer, and so he locked himself alone in his room most nights after they finished up their job at the bar. Tonight was no different, only bringing Pete to the edge, the way he usually did. The past few times, because it was just expected of him now. It might have been the close skin to skin contact, but getting off was taking much less time than it used to.

            Despite this, it was still the happiest Patrick had ever been while single. He was still getting action, and eating better than he had since his parents were still together. The women put in really good food when they did the shopping. Chardonnay, expensive cheese, shockingly good vegetables. Pete bought a cookbook with some of the leftover money from rent so they could start making recipes, and he shocked Patrick by being a really good cook.

            “Better than nine to five!” Pete would say cheerfully whenever Joe pointed out how really really weird the entire arrangement was. Patrick agreed with both of them, but must have agreed with Pete more, because he didn’t stop it.

            In fact, everything was going better than it had in months, when it all came crashing down.

            "So, do you two, like-" the young looking girl giggled. "Do you have sex?" she whispered. Patrick opened his mouth, unsure of what to say, but Pete beat him to the punch.

            "Oh, totally," Pete hung off of Patrick's shoulder. "He's a tiger in the sack." The girl giggled louder, whispering something to her friends. Clearly the boldest of her group, she cleared her throat and spoke up again.

            “So, how much to watch you two, you know, do it?”

            Patrick froze. His bones hardened into rock and his blood turned to plastic, sluggish in his veins.

            “What?” Patrick asked, although he had heard and understood the question fully. Maybe, he thought, he hoped, he had heard her wrong.

            “I bet I could come up with, like, a thousand dollars from everyone,” she said, and Patrick felt a violent shudder run through the base of his skull, warning bells, alarms going off.

            “It would be so cool!” one of the girls behind her pleaded, and the rest echoed their agreements. Their voices were all intermingling, joining into one steady buzz that grew to a roar, drowning out all individual voices in Patrick’s head. He felt his pulse singing in his neck, and his right hand flailed out, catching the first thing it could find and taking a vice grip on it while he tried to look calm.

            “But we didn’t bring anything for it,” Patrick could distantly hear Pete’s voice coming at his ears from a great distance. Something grabbed his hand back and squeezed, but though Patrick’s vision was too blurry to see who it was, he knew it was Pete.

            “What about next week?” one of the girls asked. Patrick felt a whine welling up in his throat, but he swallowed it down. He trusted Pete enough to do the talking.

            “Sure,” Pete said easily, and Patrick’s breath hitched. _FUCKING TRAITOR._

***

            Patrick didn’t say a word the rest of the time they were at the bar. He let Pete do all the work, and carried home only the bag of leftovers, leaving the rest for Pete to take. He tried to walk faster, practically jogging back to the apartment and not looking back at Pete even once.

            “Patrick!” Pete called, staggering behind him on the street. “Dude, come on, wait up! What is wrong with you?”

            Patrick’s face burned and he walked, somehow, quicker. The streets were dark and his footsteps were loud as they crashed on the cement.

            “Dude!” Pete complained. Patrick sucked in a deep breath and whirled around to face him.

            “You shouldn’t have agreed to that!” he yelled. “It’s kind of a two-person job and I had no say in it!”

            Pete gave Patrick a pained look.

            “It didn’t look like you were going to be able to answer,” Pete began, an almost condescending look on his face, “And I gave us time to think about it.”

            “If you couldn’t tell by the panic attack I was having, the answer is no!” Patrick screamed. He almost stamped his foot in frustration, but stopped himself.

            “Why not?” Pete asked.

            “A thousand reasons!” Patrick shouted back. Were it daytime, he would be making a scene. As it was, he could see that both parties of a drug deal down the street were giving him strange looks. He began lifting up fingers as he listed reasons. “That is definitely prostitution, which is ILLEGAL! We can’t fuck at the bar, so we’d have to go to one of their houses where they could have, like, cameras or something set up! They will probably expect us to get naked! Neither of us is gay, and we don’t know what we’re doing! And-”

            “I get it!” Pete yelled. “But come on, a thousand is a lot of money and we haven’t let this get weird yet-”

            “IT’S VERY FUCKING WEIRD!” Patrick screamed. “YOU KNOW IT’S WEIRD. I KNOW IT’S WEIRD. WE’RE DOING THIS BECAUSE WE ARE LITERALLY STARVING!”

            “Look, I’m not gonna make you,” Pete said, “But we only have to do this once and it’ll hold us over until the paperwork goes through the record company for the band and this’ll all be behind us!”

            “Is that all?” Patrick asked sarcastically, but he could feel the fight within him withering. Pete looked hopeful, and Patrick felt hollow.

            “Fine,” he sighed. “Just, fine.”

            “Are you sure?” Pete asked, biting his lip and only looking guilty once Patrick had agreed. Patrick’s lower lip jutted out, and a thick sensation closed in around his throat while dampness welled up in his eyes. He nodded, not trusting his voice not to crack.

            “Patrick,” Pete said, stepping closer, full of concern now. “We don’t have to.”

            Patrick shook his head, staring at the cement. He snatched one of the bags Pete was carrying, and turned away again. Pete followed after him, keeping silent for the rest of the walk home.

            Once in the apartment, Patrick glanced briefly at Pete, who looked kind of like a kicked puppy. He felt guilty, but what was he supposed to say? That he was okay with all of this? He didn’t want to lie. He didn’t want Pete to look sad either. At an internal impasse, Patrick decided just to go to his room and work on some songs.

            A particularly tricky bit had him stuck, so Patrick pulled off his headphones at the worst possible moment, overhearing the conversation in the other room through the paper-thin walls.

            “-just doesn’t seem too big of a leap!” Pete.

            “Oh, but it’s not prostitution, right?” Joe. Patrick leaned his head back against the headboard, just listening to the music of them talking.

            “Okay, it’s a little bit prostitution. But I’ve totally almost gotten off from him in that bar before, it’s not that big of a deal.”

            “Christ, dude, I wouldn’t want to have my first time in front of a crowd either.”

            Patrick shot up so suddenly that he nearly broke the laptop. FUCKING JOE.

            “Your- his- FIRST TIME?” Pete sputtered.

            “With a dude!” Joe corrected, too frantic, too obvious. Patrick tried to stifle his groan. Maybe he could pretend he was asleep. Maybe he could pretend he was dead.

            “Holy shit,” said an unconvinced Pete.

            “With a dude!” Joe pleaded, but the damage had been done.

            “Oh my god, why wouldn’t he tell me?!” Pete moaned. BECAUSE OF THIS, Patrick thought as loud as he could.

            “Would you?” Joe scoffed. Pete stayed silent for long enough that Patrick put his headphones back in and tried to lose himself again. After all, it wasn’t as though Pete was going to mention it or something.

***

            The next morning, Patrick had to come to the unfortunate conclusion that he was wrong because Pete was Pete and Pete was hounding him over the coffee table.

            “Dude, you do not want your first time to be with me,” Pete said, wide eyed and earnest.

            “You are preaching to the motherfucking choir,” Patrick told him through a mouthful of cereal.

            “Do you still want to do it?” Pete asked. Patrick sighed. No. What he wanted to do was eat his cereal in peace, but both the cereal and the milk had been obtained by sticking his tongue down Pete’s throat in a dirty, crowded bar.

            “Yeah,” he said, looking defeated. To his shock, Pete’s face lit up in a grin.

            “In that case, I totally have a plan,” Pete said, sporting a smug look. Patrick raised one eyebrow in trepidation.          

            “I can totally help you lose your virginity in a week,” Pete declared, a happy grin on his face. Patrick stared at him for a second, but the look didn’t waver.

            “You must be kidding me,” Patrick said. Pete shook his head, and Patrick stifled a groan. “You can’t be serious! Look, it’s not a big deal, it’s just sex.”

            “To the world, or to you?” Pete asked.

            “Both,” Patrick lied gruffly.

            “Come on, dude, this will be cake!” Pete declared, his undefeated smile still blasting at Patrick. Patrick gently reminded himself that he would go to jail for murder even if Pete really, really deserved it.

            “It’s fine,” he hissed, chewing his breakfast with unnecessary force.

            “Look, it’s no biggie, I’m kinda sleazy, girls smell like flowers, why wouldn’t you want to lose your virginity to a girl? Not a problem. I’ve got better connections than anybody else in Chicago,” Pete declared, puffing out his chest. Patrick raised his eyebrows.

            “I’ll pass, thanks,” he said, shaking hair out of his face and focusing on the food in front of him. Blood money, he thought, looking at the cereal in distaste.

            “No you won’t,” Pete assured him.

            “Am I allowed any autonomy over my own body?” Patrick snapped.

            “That question was a little redundant and obviously you don’t have to sleep with whoever I introduce you to,” Pete said, “But I have some really good candidates and come on, it’s not high school anymore, girls put out on the first date these days.”

            “That sounded more than mildly sexist, and I’m still not interested,” Patrick lied. Having a first time in his own bedroom, with someone he could see a future with, someone he liked, or better, loved, was an appealing picture. But not really one that fit in with anything he could imagine Pete setting him up with. And in any case, how would he start a future with a girl if he was going to leave the second date early to sleep with his best friend for money.

            “Tell you what,” Pete said, undeterred, “I’m gonna try and figure this out anyway, and if you don’t like the girls I pick out, you can always say no.”

            “I’m saying no now,” Patrick said, but he may as well have been talking to his cereal. Defeated and no longer hungry, he put his bowl in the sink and stormed outside, hoping that a walk would cool him off.

            Patrick ended up having a reasonably productive day- or, productive for him. He visited his mom, let her ruffle his hair and tried not to look like the sort of person who jerked his friend off in skeazy bars at two in the morning. She gave him a batch of pumpkin squares wrapped up in tin foil, and Patrick felt guilty for not visiting more often. He dropped by the record store, saying hi to all of his old coworkers, and picking up a record. It wasn’t as though he would be short on money in a week.

            By the time he got back to the apartment and saw Pete bent over a table in the living room, reading through endless stacks of paper, Patrick went out of his way to avoid him and go work on music in his room.

            The next morning (morning for Patrick, afternoon for the rest of the world) Pete tried to tell Patrick something, but he pushed past him, going outside before Pete could get a word out.

            Once, after an hour of wandering, Patrick realized he had nothing to do, he walked back to the apartment, only to find a line stretching down the hall from their door, filled with girls.

            “I’ve had enough estrogen for one lifetime,” Patrick muttered, in a foul mood as he pushed past them roughly and into the apartment, where he saw the line leading to the closed door of Pete’s bedroom. Since Patrick had lost all his respect for Pete’s personal boundaries over the last month or so, he decided to forgo knocking and just burst into Pete’s bedroom.

            Inside, Pete had moved his bed to the middle of the room and put a tablecloth over it. He sat on one side, looking over a stack of papers, while an eager looking scene queen sat on the other side, brushing her hair behind her ears every now and then.

            “Ahem,” Patrick said, and Pete looked up, grinning at him.

            “Ah, Patrick!” Pete said. “I’m in the middle of an interview right now, could you come back later?”

            “Interview for what?” Patrick asked, at the same time the girl looked up at him with interest and said “You’re Patrick?”

            “Yeah, whatever,” he waved her off, “Interview for what, Pete?”

            “Well, one of these lucky ladies,” Pete gave the girl a dazzling grin, “Gets the privilege of going on a date with you!”

            Patrick stared at Pete in dismay.

            “Are you joking?” he asked after a moment of silence.

            “Nope,” Pete said, and the girl shook her head in agreement.

            “This line goes outside,” Patrick said.

            “You’re a popular guy,” Pete said. Patrick’s head spun. He could feel his heartbeat everywhere, and was thankful that none of his veins had popped yet.

            “Okay,” he took a deep breath, “I’m gonna go lie down, and listen to really loud music, and pretend this isn’t happening.”

            “Good idea, man, you look a little green,” Pete said.

            “And hopefully I’ll die in my sleep,” he added under his breath, storming into his bedroom. Trying to stop Pete directly was like standing in front of an oncoming train, and though Patrick usually felt like the unmovable object to Pete’s unstoppable force, today he was tired, and vaguely hoping Pete would come to his senses on his own.

            Hoping Pete would come to his senses, however, was a lost cause. Days passed, and Patrick still had to shove past a line of girls to get to his bedroom. He had to buy a new set of headphones, because he had blown his old ones out.

            And there was a part of Patrick (a small, stupid part) that felt achingly lonely by isolating himself from Pete. Missed the dumb jokes, and maybe, just maybe, really missed making out with him, missed feeling Pete’s hand on the small of his back pulling him closer. Still he didn’t want to argue with Pete anymore.

            “I’ve decided to forgive you,” Patrick announced over his breakfast at two in the afternoon the next day. Pete looked up at him over a pile of paper applications he was pouring over.

            "You're interested in the girls I'm finding?" Pete asked delightedly.

            "Absolutely fucking not," Patrick said scornfully, trying to ignore the hurt look on Pete's face. He pulled the same dumb puppy dog pout if you are his pop-tarts; Patrick was learning to get over it.

            “I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable,” Pete said. Patrick wanted to swan dive across the table to scream a little closer to Pete’s face that they had passed the point of uncomfortable a long time ago, and what would make Patrick really comfortable would be forgetting their stupid arrangement altogether rather than have Pete try to schedule his loss of virginity to make up for a few cases of accidental prostitution.

            But Patrick took a deep breath, and collected himself.

            “Have you considered that you micromanaging my sex life isn’t going to fix the problem of you having too much power over my sex life?” Patrick asked. Pete thought about that for a moment.

            “Yeah, okay, but what it-” he began and Patrick covered up Pete’s mouth.

            “Not what if,” he said. “No what ifs. Just drop it, okay? We’ll just do this in a week and get it over with and then never talk about it again. Ever.”

            “Are you sure?” Pete asked, and he looked so guilty that Patrick felt bad for him. Yeesh.

            “I’m positive,” Patrick said. He forced a half smile that he hoped was more convincing than it felt. “Besides, not like it’ll take long if you’re involved.”

            Pete threw a spoon at Patrick’s head, and Patrick ducked it with more skill than he had before moving in with Pete.

            “Call your big-ass list of girls and apologize for being an idiot,” Patrick said, and got out of the apartment. If they were about to make a thousand dollars, he could splurge and buy a few new records. Maybe a pedal, as a small apology to himself from himself.

            With the thought of new guitar equipment cheering him up, Patrick walked down to the music store with a spring in his step. Realistically, he ought to buy a new jacket, considering how cold it was getting outside, but a new coat couldn’t distract him from the weird stomach jitters he was getting at the thought of sleeping with his best friend. For money. He could hardly think about it without shuddering, though not from disgust, he didn’t think. Maybe from fear, which was totally natural. Who wouldn’t be afraid of having their first time in front of a crowd?

            Patrick was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice the WALK sign changing to DON’T WALK, and didn’t realize anything was wrong until he heard a delivery truck’s blaring horn as he stepped right in front of it. He caught sight of the vehicle barreling toward him just as he felt a hand grab his collar and yank him backwards.

            “Holy shit, dude, you okay?” a girl asked. Patrick looked up at her, his heart still racing dizzily.

            “Yeah, Jesus, sorry, thanks!” Patrick gasped, blinking a few times to clear his vision. When he could finally see straight again, he saw a very pretty, familiar looking girl with short cropped hair and too-big eyes.

            “Hey, Patrick? Patrick from Glenbrook High?” she asked, her expression brightening. It took him a second, but finally Patrick’s eyes widened in recognition as well.

            “Anna!” he said, and pulled her into a loose, casual hug. “Oh, man, how are you doing?”

            “Good, I’ve been good!” she said brightly, “Jeez, I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said, and then looked Patrick up and down, slower than he was used to people looking at him. “You look good.”

            “Um, ah, so do you,” Patrick said, rubbing the back of his neck as he felt a blush growing on his face.

            Anna bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, biting her lip for a second before she blurted out: “So, I just got done with my thing, do you wanna get some coffee real quick? If you’re free?”

            “Oh, I’m totally free,” Patrick said, hoping he didn’t sound too eager. “Yeah, um, coffee sounds fantastic.”

            Patrick got back to the apartment hours later, the sky already darkening outside, with a smug smile on his face and feeling lighter than he had in weeks.

            “Hey!” Pete said, draping an arm around Patrick’s shoulder. Right, forgiving him probably included going back to the never ending touchiness of normal Pete time. “So, I’ve been thinking about the bar thing. You want to top or bottom?”

            Patrick’s stomach plummeted, and the heavy feelings came back with a vengeance.

            “Um, top?” he said, trying to gauge Pete’s reaction. “What do you want?”

            “I could go either way,” Pete said with a shrug. “Never bottomed before, though, could be fun.”

            “Wait, have you slept with a guy before?” Patrick asked. Jesus, he was exponentially the least experienced.

            “Once or twice,” Pete said, waving a hand in the air.

            “Once, and he was drunk,” Joe said from the kitchen. Patrick giggled a little as Pete scowled.

            “Anyway,” Pete said, “If you’re topping, do you know what you’re supposed to do?”

            “Do we have to discuss this now?” Patrick asked, glancing up at Joe for help, but Joe was resolutely focused on preparing dinner, even if he was smirking.

            “I’d rather get fucked by Rick Moranis in front of a crowd than explain to you how to stretch my asshole in front of a bar full of girls,” Pete explained, talking right through Patrick’s deep crimson blushing. His face felt hot enough to be on fire.

            “I- I- Joe’s cooking!” Patrick complained.

            “Patrick’s right, no more talking about Rick Moranis while I make dinner,” Joe demanded, and Patrick blushed deeply again. Joe was younger than him, so why did he always feel like the naive kid?

            “So you start with one finger-” Pete began.

            “Don’t forget lube,” Joe suggested.

            “This isn’t happening,” Patrick moaned, letting his head slump to the table. “Normal friends don’t talk about how to stretch out assholes at the dinner table.”

            There was a brief moment of silence before Pete spoke again.

            “Yeah, so you’re work your way up to three fingers before you end up fucking me, but you know, make it slow and sensual, get me turned on while you’re doing it.”

            “Great, is that all? You massive fuckfaces?” Patrick asked.

            “I mean, you know, follow my cues and stuff, go slower if I tell you to,” Pete said with a shrug.

            “Should I wear a condom?” Patrick asked. He had given up on fighting this.

            “Hmm, I got tested recently, but it’s not a bad idea just in case,” Pete said sagely.

            “Super,” Patrick sighed deeply. “In normal news, I have a date tomorrow.”

            “Sweet,” Pete said. “Make sure you don’t make it exclusive until after we fuck, girls are really touchy about that stuff.”

            “Actually, we dated for a bit in high school, and I was wondering if you guys could be, you know, anywhere but this apartment tomorrow night.”

            “I was already staying at Marie’s,” Joe said instantly. Patrick was instantly grateful towards him. Pete, on the other hand, looked stricken.

            “Oh, um, yeah, sure,” Pete said, stumbling over his words. Patrick frowned.

            “I mean, if it’s a bad night-”

            “No, it’s great!” Pete said, turning back into his usual self instantly. “Go get ‘em, tiger,” he said, punching Patrick in the shoulder. Patrick sighed, annoyed again.

            “I’m just being overly optimistic,” Patrick said. Pete gave him a reassuring smile.

            “Good luck,” he said, smiling a bright smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Patrick felt a small tug in his stomach, but Joe pronounced the pasta done, and he didn’t have time to press it.

***

            Patrick and Anna technically had a history, though Patrick felt as though even the casual “dated for a bit in high school” was stretching the truth. Anna had been Patrick’s girlfriend in high school.

            For three class days.

            But they were both sort of losers at the time, and now Anna looked really hot and she definitely wasn’t freaking out over some other band geek this time, and Patrick was pretty sure he had gotten much better looking since high school as well. He had no real reason to believe that anything would happen that night, but then again. Well. Anna had been leaning in really close to him at the coffee shop. She had kicked playfully at his legs under the table. She had almost kissed him right then, and offhandedly mention how free love needed to make a comeback.

            Patrick was a little naive, but he wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t think this girl was going to be serious, but she could be, and even if she wasn’t, she could be a distraction from the absolute mortal terror he felt every single time he thought about trying to have sex with Pete in front of a couple dozen women.

            (And the pretty girl was an even better distraction from the thoughts creeping up in Patrick’s brain like bugs, the thoughts that kept whispering to him that he wouldn’t mind it at all if there weren’t other people watching. The ones that reminded him that not every reaction could be chalked up to pure biology.)

            Hopeful for something, anything, Patrick bought some flowers before he picked Anna up. The cheapest carnations he could find, because seriously, he wasn’t going to spend twenty dollars on something that would die in a few days anyway. Anna seemed to love them, however, and she threw her arms around him and greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. Promising.

            They ended up going to see a movie before dinner, and even though Patrick tried to be as gentlemanly as possible, when he reached out to grab her hand, she took his hand and pushed it high up on her thigh, up underneath the hem of her skirt, and Patrick felt a thrill run through him as she did.

            “Are you really interested in seeing this?” she whispered in his ear, and she shifted ever so slightly forward, just enough that Patrick could feel the tips of his fingers get damp. His vision ran red, and, taking his cue, he slid his finger up and down, and Anna writhed in the theater seat. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath her skirt, and she kept letting out soft, shameless gasps, while the plot of a movie Patrick couldn’t even remember the name of played out on screen.

            Anna kept twitching upward at Patrick’s touch, though he was so inexperienced he could only assume that she just really needed to have sex. Still, she stopped him before she could cum, and slid his hand back down her thigh, still inappropriately high, but not the same thing.

            “Don’t want to get kicked out,” she murmured in his ear. “You said your roommates would be out, right?”

            Patrick nodded eagerly, and she laughed at what must have been a bad time in the movie, as everyone turned to glare at her.

            The movie passed without further incident, and Patrick almost took her to the bar, just out of instinct, and at the last moment realized what he was doing, pulling her into a crowded sandwich shop instead. Anna didn’t question it, and ordered a cheap grilled sandwich, eating quickly.

            Patrick tried to make conversation, and it turned out that they didn’t have much in common. What had she been doing since high school? Still going to college, undeclared, but thinking about biology, and him? He was an up and coming musician in a local pop punk band. Officially. It wasn’t as though he could tell her he was virtually a prostitute. It felt like they had already exhausted all they had in common, but as soon as Anna finished swallowing her last bites of sandwich, she saved the day.

            “Do you want to show me your guitar? Maybe play some of your band’s music for me?” she asked, and she leaned over the table. Her hair was short, but she was close enough that Patrick could practically smell the detergent-y tang of shampoo wafting off of it.

            “I’d love to,” Patrick said gratefully. He left the money on the table and told the waitress no change, rushing out onto the street before they could have a chance to talk too much more.

            “It’s really quite close, unless you need a cab…?” he asked, and she shook her head. She leaned into Patrick as they walked, as she was somehow, miraculously, shorter than him, and gripped his hand inside his coat pocket. It was a little sweaty, and Patrick felt sort of grossed out with himself, remembering that he hadn’t washed his hands since the movie.

            Patrick ran up to the apartment, praying that he had remembered to at least make the bed before he left earlier, but when he opened the door, he was thunderstruck.

            “Oh!” Anna gasped, and giggled a little. “This is- well, I’d say presumptive, but you’re not wrong. Kinda cute, though.”

            Taper candles, tea lights, and single stem rose vases littered every available surface in the apartment. The whole place was clean and devoid of any of the old socks, pizza boxes, and video games that made their apartment look so powerfully boyish. An expensive cheesecake sat on the counter, along with two wine flutes. Patrick opened the fridge to see a bottle of wine sitting in the middle shelf, and he felt a strange pang in his chest. He turned back to Anna, the heat in his face rising.

            “I didn’t- my roommates, god, I told them I was going on a date tonight-”

            “Hey,” Anna put a slender finger up to his lips. “It’s cute.” She kissed his jaw, and left a trail of kisses up to his earlobe. “Which is your room?”

            Patrick took her by the hand and led her into his bedroom, where, to his further embarrassment, the bed was strewn with rose petals.

            “Oh, I’m gonna kill Pete,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it.

            Anna, looking amused, lifted a note off of the center of the bed, and waved it in the air.

            “‘To Patrick’?” she read, and held it out to him. Patrick heaved another deep sigh before reading the note. It simply said: “Be safe; have fun.”

            Suddenly, Patrick felt ill. He sat down on the bed, almost overcome with a sudden and unexplainable grief. Everything was going right but all of a sudden everything felt so, so wrong.

            “Are you alright?” Anna asked, the bed dipping as she sat down next to him. Patrick shook his head stiffly, and he crumpled the note up, letting it drop to the floor. Anna was beautiful, and into him, and already wet, and he couldn’t do it. Everything Patrick had been trying to push down over the past few weeks bubbled up to the surface, and he worried his voice might crack as he spoke.

            “I can’t do this,” he said.

            “You can’t?” Anna asked, bewildered.

            “No, I can’t,” Patrick said, feeling stronger than he had a moment ago. He looked up, and was happy to see she didn’t look hurt. “Listen, you’re great, and I really want to do this, but I just- I think I’m in love with someone else, and this just isn’t right.”

            “Patrick,” she looked almost guilty, “I’m not, you know, expecting us to fall in love.”

            “Neither am I!” he assured her. “But I still can’t do this. I’m really sorry.”

            Anna laughed, a little sadly, but not devastated.

            “Okay, then. No sex. Do you actually want to play me some of your band’s music, then?”

            So Patrick did. He played guitar and sang, and Anna ate cheesecake. They both drank wine, and after another awkward hour, she left, telling him to call if he ever changed his mind. With the bottle still half full, Patrick sank deep into the couch and drank deeply, turning on the TV and letting his mind grow fuzzy.

            He was in love. With Pete. What a nightmare, but he wasn’t as shocked as he thought he would be. Maybe, Patrick thought, he’d accepted this subconsciously a long time ago and simply hadn’t been able to admit the offending thought aloud.

            Hours crept away while he sat on the couch, stewing. Maybe it wasn’t too late to pull out of sleeping with Pete too. He could become a monk. He wasn’t religious, but monks still composed music. Then again, why give this up when it might be his only chance to sleep with Pete. In any case, wasn’t his big complaint with the whole arrangement that he wanted to have his first time with someone he loved? He was certainly in love with Pete. Patrick had always sort of imagined that the other person would be in love with him too, but half wasn’t bad.

            Deep in musing, Patrick didn’t look up when he heard the door click softly open. He did, however, look up when Pete tripped, yelled “Shit!” and fell noisily to the floor.

            Patrick spun around in shock and didn’t bother to cover his mouth when he started laughing, a loud, delighted guffaw.

            “What are you still doing up? Alone?” Pete asked, getting to his feet with a wince and brushing himself off. “Shit, did things not work out with the chick?”

            “Uh, yes and no, no thanks to you,” Patrick said. “She was really into me, but it just didn’t happen,” he said. He felt abruptly self-conscious, and hoped he wasn’t outwardly embarrassed. Christ, would he feel this embarrassed around Pete forever?

            “Sucks,” Pete said in a would-be sympathetic voice, but Patrick couldn’t help but notice that Pete looked almost… relieved.

            Something clicked into place in Patrick’s head, and he jumped to his feet, swaying slightly, like he was drunk. He felt drunk.

            “Dude?” Pete asked, and Patrick stepped closer to him.

            “You- you didn’t want me to sleep with her,” Patrick said. He felt perfectly sober sitting down, but all the wine seemed to hit him once he was on his feet.

            “What? Of course I did! I’m totally rooting for you, dude,” Pete insisted. His hair was too short to pull, and that sounded awkward anyway. Patrick instead jammed his index finger into Pete’s chest.

            “Tonight was going fantastic,” Patrick said in an almost accusing tone. He sounded angry, but he didn’t feel angry. “We hit it off, we were about to fuck, and then-”

            Patrick leaned in, way too close to Pete, until his lips were centimeters from the barely perceptible stubble on Pete’s jaw.

            “-and then-”

            He grabbed the back of Pete’s neck with both his hands and smashed their faces together. As far as kisses went, even between the two of them, it was one of Patrick’s worst. It was sloppy and messy, Patrick was drunk, and Pete wasn’t reciprocating at all.

            Patrick pulled away, focused hard on not swaying, and frowned at the confused and concerned look on Pete’s face.

            “That was a moment,” Patrick informed him. “A big moment. I skipped the part of the story where I realized I was in love with you so we could have a big romantic kiss, and you, uh, you killed it.”

            Pete took a deep breath, and grimaced.

            “Patrick, listen-”

            “Oh, no, don’t ‘Patrick, listen’ me right now!” Patrick begged. “I am not going to listen! I have kissed a lot of people and I like kissing you best! And you are, or were, acting like you liked me too! And if you are about to tell me I’ve been reading this whole thing wrong this will be the most embarrassing moment of my entire life, and after the public school experience I’ve had, that’s really saying something!”

            “It’s not that I don’t like you!” Pete insisted, and he tugged Patrick over to the couch, sitting him down. “It’s just, look, I’m not a good idea.”

            “No shit, Sherlock,” Patrick said, rolling his eyes.

            “To be with,” Pete said. “I’m a horrible boyfriend. I always cheat. I suck at long distance. I’m crazy. I am horrible news and I really, really care about you, and you should absolutely not fall in love with me.”

            “Too late,” Patrick said blandly. “You’re fantastic and pretty and kind and funny and a very good kisser and you’re kind of a jackass, but I’ve grown fond of it, and I’m in love with you.”

            “You can still take that back,” Pete said, but his eyes had travelled down to Patrick’s lips.

            “All I think of when I jerk off is you,” Patrick said in a lower voice, growing more confident. Pete’s breathing grew uneven as he moved closer, his hand somehow now on Patrick’s hand.

            “We can still pretend this never happened,” Pete said.

            “I’ve never wanted to fuck someone more in my life,” Patrick said, their faces once again too close.

            “Think of the band?” Pete said, but his heart was no longer in it, and without waiting for Patrick to retort, he pushed himself the last inch forward, kissing Patrick harshly, but much more gracefully than Patrick had.

            Patrick responded enthusiastically, and realized for the first time how much safer he felt kissing Pete in private. Pete’s hands were calloused but strangely soft, and on the rare occasions he opened his eyes at the same time as Patrick, they were dark and hot with lust, molten copper as he stared at Patrick in desperation.

            “You- you should fuck me,” Pete whispered when Patrick’s lips felt raw. Patrick nodded, because yeah, he had never heard a better idea in his life.

            Pete half dragged Patrick to the bedroom, still covered in rose petals. Patrick had to give it to Pete, they smelled nice when they were getting crushed. He pulled desperately at Pete’s jeans until Pete laughed a little, taking them off and revealing surprisingly pale legs. No underwear, not that Patrick was surprised.

            “Bend over,” Patrick demanded, and Pete rolled over onto his hands and knees.

            “Bossy,” he noted. “Is that gonna be a trend in the fu- oh, fuck!” he gasped as Patrick traced his finger lightly around the rim of Pete’s ass. “Oh god, this is happening.”

            “I know,” Patrick said, eyes wide.

            “Do you have lube?” Pete asked.

            Patrick did have lube, brand new and neon purple with an embarrassing gold label sitting in the top of his bedside draw. It was humiliating to hold or look at, but by the time he turned back to Pete, the sight of him sprawled on the bed was enough to bring him back to his senses.

            Patrick, overcome with desire, grabbed Pete by the jaw to pull his face closer, forgoing an opening with a kiss to bite down hard on Pete’s lip instead. Pete groaned into Patrick’s mouth, tugging on his hair till it hurt.

            “Pete-” Patrick sighed. He lifted his hands over his head and Pete obligingly lifted Patrick’s shirt off of him. Patrick’s skin felt achingly hot, somewhere beyond embarrassment. The only thing that seemed to ease the heat pressing down on his chest was grabbing Pete tighter.

            Somewhere in the middle of them pressing together, too hot everywhere, Pete had lost his shirt, and nothing but the promise of touching him more could tear Patrick’s eyes away from staring at him indefinitely, drinking in the sight of him.

            “Wanna try again?” Pete asked breathlessly. Patrick nodded, flipping Pete onto his hands and knees again.

            The bottle of lube made a horrible squelching noise when Patrick squeezed some onto his hand, smearing it all on his index finger and praying it would be enough.

            “Tell me if it hurts too much,” Patrick whispered in Pete’s ear, pressing in his finger. Pete hissed, and halfway through it turned to a sigh. His fingers, clawed up in the bed sheets, slowly uncurled, his breath slowing until it hitched, releasing a tiny sigh of pleasure.

            “Good?” Patrick asked, and Pete nodded. Patrick added a second finger, paying minute attention to what he was doing as he focused on the flutter of Pete’s eyelids, the slight curve to his mouth as he adjusted to the pressure.

            “Do I keep going?” Patrick asked, and Pete nodded again. As Patrick added a third finger, he kissed Pete, trying to push back the pained whimpers Pete was making.

            “Ow, fuck, okay, don’t stop-” Pete said, his voice half a whisper as he directed Patrick.

            “Yeah, okay, like that?” Patrick asked, twisting his fingers.

            “Christ!” Pete gasped, his eyes widening. He pushed down against Patrick’s fingers, panting for breath. “Yeah, uh-huh, right there-!”

            “You’re gorgeous like this,” Patrick said, slowly pulling out.

            “Please, please, please shut up and fuck me,” Pete demanded.

            Patrick pulled away, ignoring Pete’s whine of displeasure as he peeled off his jeans. Pete turned back onto his back, staring up at Patrick with wide eyes.

            “Enjoying the view?” Patrick asked.

            “Uh-huh,” Pete said, and Patrick lurched forward, hiking Pete’s knees up around his hips, biting his way down Pete’s neck.

            He peppered Pete with kisses in time to rough thrusts, but Pete was much more silent than Patrick would have expected. Patrick was more silent than he thought he would be, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was filled with the rustling of the sheets and the sound of skin grinding against skin.

            “Fuck, don’t stop,” Pete groaned, in genuine porn star fashion.

            “I think-” Patrick grunted, his blunt fingernails driving into Pete’s shoulders, “Fuck- I’m not going to last forever.”

            Patrick’s muscles ached from holding himself up, so he let his weight lean down on Pete’s chest, heavy and hot, but more contact didn’t seem to bother Pete. His stomach brushed against Pete’s dick, and Pete moaned, his fingers pressed hard against Patrick’s back.

            Patrick could feel himself getting close, and he wrapped his hand loosely around Pete’s dick. It was sloppy, but he knew what Pete liked, the long, teasing strokes, taking forever to build up enough of a tempo to get him off.

            Pete came with a strangled scream, his hands gripping tight to Patrick’s shoulders as he tilted his head backwards. Patrick’s eyes bugged as he stared at him, writhing as much as he could while still pinned down by Patrick, His mouth hung slightly open as he stilled, all of his muscles relaxing with a vacant expression on his face, his only movement coming from Patrick’s rhythmic thrusts.

            It took another minute after Pete finished for Patrick to come, falling on Pete’s chest as he did, breathing in heavy, shaky breaths.

            “Ahem,” Pete coughed after a minute. “Rick, you’re, ah, you’re crushing my ribcage.”

            “Fuck, sorry,” Patrick pulled out slowly and rolled off of him and collapsed in a boneless pile next to him. He giggled dozily.

            “What?” Pete asked, letting one hand lift up and trail through Patrick’s hair.

            “Forgot a condom,” Patrick sighed, still smiling. He stared at the cracked ceiling above him feeling completely blissful, like nothing in the world could touch him. Somehow so similar and so different from jerking off.

            “I’m not too worried about catching anything from the virgin,” Pete snickered.

            “You don’t ever get to laugh at me again. I’ve had my dick in your ass, I’m pretty sure that’s part of the rules.”

            “There are no rules to gay sex, and you’re a fucking nerd,” Pete said, punching Patrick lightly in the arm.

            Patrick laughed again, wrapping one arm around Pete’s waist and leaning his head on Pete’s shoulder.

            “So what now?” Patrick wondered aloud. “Should we talk about this or something?”

            “Tomorrow,” Pete said. “It’s late. I’m tired. And your bed smells like roses, so I’m sleeping here.”

            Patrick smiled against Pete’s neck, nodding lazily. They could deal with anything, he thought, in the morning.

***

            “Gross!” Joe yelled.

            Patrick’s eyes fluttered open, squinting at the midday sun filling his room, and eventually up at Joe, scowling at him.

            “What?” Patrick lifted a hand up to cover his eyes. Still groggy from sleep, he sat all the way up before he noticed a complete lack of pajamas or blankets covering him up. Blinking, he scrambled around on the bed to try and find the blanket, which had apparently slid off the bed at some point in time during the night. Eventually, he threw a pillow over his crotch, wincing as he turned back to Joe.

            “How long have you been lying next to the chainsaw?” Joe asked, disgruntled. Patrick turned, still confused in the haze of having just woken up, to see Pete, sprawled out and snoring next to him, and oh, there was the blanket, entirely tangled up in between his legs. Patrick flushed with the memory, turning from Pete to Joe sheepishly.

            “Um,” Patrick scratched the back of his head, “So, that happened.”

            “And by ‘that’, you mean sleeping with Pete?” Joe asked. Patrick, unwilling to have this conversation on his own, shook Pete awake. Pete groaned, stretched, and finally opened his eyes.

            “Oh, hey Joe,” Pete said, yawning loudly, “You bring any breakfast?”

            “So, was anyone watching last night, or…?” Joe asked.

            “Nope,” Pete said, popping the ‘p’ sound in the word. He tossed a wily grin at Patrick. “That one was just for us.”

            “No kissing in the kitchen or dining room when I’m around, and no sex in anywhere but one of your rooms,” Joe said, and left, muttering under his breath about people being idiots that took too long to fall in love.

            “So,” Pete said, propping himself up on one elbow and smiling at Patrick. “I’ve been thinking.”

            “You’ve been snoring,” Patrick corrected.

            “I’ve been thinking,” Pete rolled his eyes, “And I know mattresses don’t have much of a resale value, but your bedframe might go for a few hundred if it’s good, and that can tide us over till we’re getting paid regularly by the label.”

            “What?” Patrick asked blearily. He put on his glasses to blink at Pete in full clarity, and Pete shrugged shyly.

            “If you wanted to move into my room, since it’s bigger,” Pete shrugged again. Patrick met his eyes, suddenly shy after everything, and leaned forward, pulling Pete into a long, deep kiss.

            “Can’t we get money some other way?” he asked, his lips so close they brushed Pete’s face.

            “No, I don’t think so. I want you all to myself.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this one FOREVER, and honestly, it's just a relief to finally be able to post it. Also, this is my first /real/ sex scene, so be gentle in the reviews, haha. Thanks for reading! Send any fic requests to me at holytrohmanempire.tumblr.com and check out my other fic, The High Way to Hell.


End file.
